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Naṣr b. Muzāḥim

(228 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abu ’l-Faḍl al-Minḳarī al-Tamīmī, early S̲h̲īʿī historian (though probably not, as Sezgin rightly observes, the first one) and traditionist; his date of birth is uncertain, but he died in 212/827. He lived originally in Kūfa but later moved to Bag̲h̲dād; amongst those from whom he heard traditions was Sufyān al-T̲h̲awrī [ q.v.]. His own reputation as an ak̲h̲bāri and muḥaddit̲h̲ was, however, weak, and he was regarded by some Sunnī authors as a fervent ( g̲h̲ālī ) S̲h̲īʿī. He is best known for his Kitāb Waḳʿat Ṣiffīn (this has been reconstructed, from the p…

al-Maybudī

(321 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the nisba of two scholars from the small town of Maybud [ q.v.] near Yazd in Persia and also of a vizier of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs. 1. ras̲h̲īd al-dīn abu ’l-faḍl aḥmad b. muḥammad , author of an extensive Ḳurʾān commentary in Persian, begun in 520/1126, the Kas̲h̲f al-asrār waʿuddat al-abrār , extant in several mss. Bibliography Storey, i, 1190-1 Storey-Bregel, i, 110-11 and on the nisba in general, al-Samʿānī, Ansāb, f. 547b. 2. mīr ḥusayn b. muʿīn al-dīn al-manṭiḳī , pupil of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī [ q.v.], ḳāḍī and philosopher, author of several works on…

Nīs̲h̲āpūrī

(240 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Ẓahīr al-Dīn , Persian author who wrote a valuable history of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs during the reign of the last Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ of Persia, Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (III) b. Arslan [ q.v.]; he must have died ca. 580/1184-5. Nothing is known of his life except that Rāwandī [ q.v.] states ( Rāḥat al-ṣudūr , ed. M. Iqbál, 54) that he had been tutor to the previous sultans Masʿūd b. Muḥammad [ q.v.] and Arslan b. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (II). His Sald̲j̲ūḳ-nāma was long believed lost, but was known as the main source for Rāwandī’s information on the Sald̲j̲ūḳs up to the latter’s own time (see Rāḥat al-ṣudūr, Preface, pp. XXVI, XXI…

Ḳandahār

(3,156 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a city in southeastern Afg̲h̲ānistān (in modern times giving its name to a province) situated in latitude 31°27′ N. and longitude ¶ 65°43′ E. at an altitude of 3,460 ft. (1,000 m.), and lying between the Arg̲h̲andāb and S̲h̲orāb Rivers in the warmer, southern climatic zone ( garmsīr ) of Afg̲h̲ānistān. Hence snow rarely lies there for very long, and in modern times the city has been favoured as a winter residence for Kābulīs wishing to avoid the rigours of their winter (see J. Humlum et al., La géographie de l’Afghanistan , étude d’un pays aride , Copenhagen 1959, 14…

al-Rūd̲h̲rāwarī

(352 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, abū s̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ muḥammad b. al-ḥusayn , zaḥīr al-dīn , vizier to the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and adīb (437-88/1045-95). He was actually born at Kangāwar [see kinkiwar ] in D̲j̲ibāl, but his father, a member of the official classes, stemmed from the nearby district of Rūd̲h̲rāwar [ q.v.]. Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ Muḥammad served al-Muḳtadī as vizier very briefly in 471/1078-8 after the dismissal of ʿAmīd al-Dawla Ibn D̲j̲ahīr [see d̲j̲ahīr , banū ] ¶ and then for a longer period, S̲h̲aʿbān 476 Ṣafar or Rabīʿ I 484/December 1083 to January 1084-April or May 1091, after the second …

Nūḥ

(307 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(I) b. Naṣr b. Aḥmad , Sāmānid amīr of Transoxania and Khurāsān (331-43/943-54), given after his death the honorific of al-Amīr al-S̲h̲āhīd (“the Praiseworthy”). ¶ Continuing the anti-S̲h̲īʿī reaction which marked the end of the reign of Nūḥ’s father Naṣr [ q.v.], the early years of the new reign were dominated by the vizierate of the pious Sunnī faḳīh Abu i-Faḍl Muḥammad Sulamī, but very soon, ominous signs of decline began to appear in the state. There were revolts in the tributary kingdom of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.] and in K̲h̲urāsān under its governor Abū ʿAlī Čag̲h̲ānī, whom Nūḥ a…

K̲h̲ōst

(523 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Arabic spellings K̲h̲.w.st or K̲h̲.wāst, the name of various places in Afg̲h̲anistān. The most likely etymology for the name is that given by G. Morgenstierne in his An etymological vocabulary of Pashto , Oslo 1928, 98: that it is an Iranised form * hwāstu , cf. Skr. suvāstu- “good site” (which became the place-name Swāt [ q.v.] in the North-West frontier region of Pakistan). The mediaeval Arabic and Persian geographers mention what appear to be two places of this name in northern Afg̲h̲anistān. Those of the 4th/10th century mention K̲h̲as̲h̲t as a town on …

Naṣr b. Sayyār

(743 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
al-Layt̲h̲ī al-Kinānī , the last ¶ governor of K̲h̲urāsān under the Umayyads, d. 131/748. Naṣr’s whole career seems to have been spent in K̲h̲urāsān and the East. In 86/705 he campaigned in the upper Oxus region under Ṣāliḥ, brother of the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Ḳutayba b. Muslim [ q.v.], and received a village there as reward. Then in 106/724 he was campaigning in Farg̲h̲āna under Muslim b. Saʿīd al-Kilābī, and served as governor of Balk̲h̲ for some years. Hence on the death of the governor of the East Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī [ q.v.], the caliph His̲h̲ām was advised to appoint as hi…

Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd

(340 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
the title given to local Iranian rulers of Sog̲h̲dia and Farg̲h̲āna in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period. Although Justi ( Iranisches Namenbuch , 14 ), Unvala ( The translation of an extract from Mafâtîh al-ʿUlûm of al-K̲h̲wârazmî , in J. of the . Cama Ins xi (1928), 18-19) and Spuler ( Iran , 30-1, 356) derive it from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲aeta- ‘shining, brilliant’, an etymology from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- ‘king, ruler’ (M. Pers. and N. Pers. s̲h̲āh ) is more probable (Christensen, and Bosworth and Clauson, see below). This O. Pers. term k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- penetrated beyond T…

Munād̲j̲āt

(256 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the verbal noun of the form III verb nād̲j̲ā “to whisper to, talk confidentially with someone”, which is used in Ḳurʾān, LVIII, 13, in this sense, and in the reciprocal form VI in LVIII, 9, 10, of the murmurs of discontent amongst the Prophet’s followers, probably after the Uḥud reverse (see Nöldeke-Schwally, G des Q, i, 212-13). Munād̲j̲āt becomes, however, a technical term of Muslim piety and mystical experience in the sense of “extempore prayer”, as opposed to the corporate addressing of the deity in the ṣalāt (see Hughes, A dictionary of Islam, 420), and of the Ṣūfīs’ communio…

Eličpur

(611 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Iličpur , modern Ačalpur , a town of the mediaeval Islamic province of Berār [ q.v.] in southern Central India, lying near the headwaters of the Purnā constituent of the Tāptī River in lat. 21° 16ʹ N. and long. 77° 33ʹ E. Up to 1853, Eličpur was generally regarded as the capital of Berār, after when Amraotī became the administrative centre. The pre-Islamic history of Eličpur is semi-legendary, its foundation being attributed to a Jain Rād̲j̲ā called Il in the 10th century. By Baranī’s time (later 7th/13th century), it could be described as one of the fam…

Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam

(604 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, “The limits of the world”, the title of a concise but very important anonymous Persian geography of the world, Islamic and non-Islamic, composed towards the end of the 4th/10th century in Gūzgān [ q.v.] in what is now northem Afghānistān. The work exists in a unique manuscript of the 7th/13th century (the “Toumansky manuscript”) which came to light in Buk̲h̲ārā in 1892. The Persian text was first edited and published by W. Barthold at Leningrad in 1930 as Ḥudūd al-ʿālem , rukopisi̊ Tumanskago , with an important preface (this last reprinted in his Sočineny̲a̲ , vii…

Rāfiʿ b. Hart̲h̲ama

(153 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a soldier of fortune who disputed control of K̲h̲urāsān with other adventurers and with the Ṣaffārid Amīr ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ [ q.v.] in the later 3rd/9th century, d. 283/896. Rāfiʿ had been in the service of the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.], and after the death in 268/882 at Nīs̲h̲āpūr of the previous contender for power in K̲h̲urāsān, Aḥmad al-K̲h̲ud̲j̲istānī, he set himself up as de facto ruler of K̲h̲urāsān, subsequently securing legitimisation from the ʿAbbāsid caliphs when al-Muwaffaḳ [ q.v.] broke with the Ṣaffārids. By 283/896, however, ʿAmr managed to defeat Rāfiʿ and to dri…

Sāsān

(554 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Banū , the blanket designation in mediaeval Islamic literature for the practitioners of begging, swindling, confidence tricks, the displaying of disfiguring diseases, mutilated limbs, etc., so that sāsānī has often become a general term in both Arabic and Persian for “beggar, trickster”. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa uses sāsānī in the sense of “pertaining to magic or slight-of-hand”, with the ʿilm al-ḥiyal al-sāsāniyya denoting “the science of artifices and trickery”. In his treatise warning the general public against trickery in all forms, al-Muk̲h̲tār min kas̲h̲f al-asrār

Lālā

(477 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Lala (p.), a term found amongst the Turkmen dynasties of Persia and, especially, amongst the Ṣafawids, with the meaning of tutor, specifically, tutor of royal princes, passing also to the Ottoman Turks. Under the Aḳ Ḳoyunlu [ q.v.], both atabeg [see atabak ] and lālā are found, but after the advent of the Ṣafawids (sc. after 907/1501), the latter term becomes more common, with the Arabic term muʿallim “instructor” also found. Such persons were already exalted figures in the state. The lālā of S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl I’s second son Sām Mīrzā was the īs̲h̲īk-āḳāsī [ q.v.] or Grand Marshal of the great dī…

al-Malik al-ʿAzīz

(194 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Manṣūr K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz , eldest son of D̲j̲alāl al-Dawla S̲h̲īrzīl. Būyid prince (407-41/1016 or 1017-1049). In the lifetime of his father D̲j̲alal al-Dawla [ q.v.], ruler of Bag̲h̲dād, he was governor of Baṣra and Wāsiṭ and latterly heir to the throne, but when his father died in S̲h̲aʿbān 435/March 1044, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz was away from the capital in Wāsiṭ, and superior financial resources enabled his more forceful cousin ʿImād al-Dīn Abū Kālīd̲j̲ār Marzubān [ q.v.] to secure the loyalty of the Būyid troops in Bag̲h̲dād and to establish himself firmly in ʿIrāḳ. …

Pahlawān

(742 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p.), from Pahlaw , properly “Parthian”, ¶ acquired in pre-modern Persian and thence in Turkish, the sense of “wrestler, one who engages in hand-to-hand physical combat”, becoming subsequently a general term for “hero, warrior, champion in battle”. From this later, broader sense it is used as a personal name in the Persian world, e.g. for the Eldigüzid Atabeg [see ilden̄izids ] Nuṣrat al-Dīn D̲j̲ahān-Pahlawān (reigned in ʿĀd̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. d. 581 or 582/1186 [see pahlawān , muḥammad b. ilden̄iz ; and see Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, 237, for other bearers of this name]. The w…

Muḥammad b. Hindū-S̲h̲āh

(212 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
Nak̲h̲čiwānī , S̲h̲ams al-Dīn, Persian official and littérateur of the 8th/14th century and apparendy the son of Hindū-S̲h̲āh b. Sand̲j̲ar Gīrānī or al-D̲j̲īrānī, author of an Arabic adab work (Brockelmann, II2, 245, S II, 256) and of a Persian version of Ibn al-Ṭiḳṭaḳā’s Fak̲h̲rī , the Tad̲j̲ārib al-salaf (see Storey, i, 81, 1233; Storey-Bregel, i, 326-7). Muḥammad was a chancery secretary under the Il-K̲h̲ānids. He wrote a Persian-Persian glossary, Ṣiḥāḥ al-Furṣ , dedicated to his superior G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn, son of the great vizier for the Mongols, Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh [ q.v.…

Naṣīḥat al-Mulūk

(4,755 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), literally “advice for rulers”, a phrase under which may conveniently be considered the genre of pre-modern Islamic literature which consists of advice to rulers and their executives on politics and statecraft ( siyāsa [ q.v.] or tadbīr al-mulūk ); the ruler’s comportment towards God and towards the subjects or raʿiyya [ q.v.] whom God has entrusted to his charge; the conduct of warfare, diplomacy and espionage; etc. All these themes correspond to the genre of mediaeval European literature known as that of “mirrors for princes” or Fürstenspiegel (see on this, Dict . of the Middle Age…

Ṭāhir b. al-Ḥusayn

(465 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Muṣʿab b. Ruzayḳ, called D̲h̲u ’l-Yamīhayn (? “the ambidextrous”), b. 159/776, d. 207/822, the founder of a short line of governors in K̲h̲urāsān during the high ʿAbbāsid period, the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.]. His forebears had the aristocratic Arabic nisba of “al-K̲h̲uzāʿī”, but were almost certainly of eastern Persian mawlā stock, Muṣʿab having played a part in the ʿAbbāsid Revolution as secretary to the dāʿī Sulaymān b. Kat̲h̲īr [ q.v.]. He and his son al-Ḥusayn were rewarded with the governorship of Pūs̲h̲ang [see būs̲h̲and̲j̲ ], and Muṣʿab at least apparently governed Harāt also. …

al-Sīrad̲j̲ān

(600 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Sīradtān , one of the principal cities of mediaeval Persian Kirmān and that province’s capital during the first three Islamic centuries. Only from Būyid times onwards (4th/10th century) did Bardasīr or Guwās̲h̲īr (perhaps originally a ¶ Sāsānid foundation, *Weh Ardas̲h̲īr) become the administrative capital, known in the sources also as s̲h̲ahr -i Kirmān [see kirmān, at vol. V, 150]. Sīrad̲j̲ān now exists as the name of a district in the western part of Kirmān province and as a name recently revived and given to the present town of Saʿīdābād on the S̲h̲…

Miyāna

(446 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, in the early Islamic souces more usually Miyānid̲j̲, a town of Persia situated on the Ḳizil-Üzen [ q.v.] affluent of the Safīd-Rūd which drains southeastern Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān [ q.v.]. The modern town lies in lat. 37°20′ N. and long. 47°45′ E. at an altitude of 1,100 m./3,514 ft. Being at the confluence of several rivers on the section of the Ḳizil-Üzen known in mediaeval Islamic times as the “river of Miyānid̲j̲” (cf. Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzha , 224, tr. 216), Miyāna (literally, “middle place”, cf. Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, v, 240) was in mediaeval times …

Īd̲h̲ad̲j̲

(1,007 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
or Māl-Amīr , town of western Persia, situated on a tributary of the upper reaches of the Dud̲j̲ayl or Kārūn river, in southern Luristān, at 49° 45′ E. and 31° 50′ N. In mediaeval times it was generally reckoned to be part of the province of al-Ahwāz or K̲h̲ūzistān [ q.v.], and under the ʿAbbāsids was the capital of a separate administrative district or kūra . It lay on a plain at an altitude of 3,100 feet, and though reckoned by the geographers to be in the garmsīr or hot zone, the nearby mountains gave it a pleasant and healthy climate; the winter snow from…

Ṭahmūrat̲h̲

(602 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, generally accounted the second king of the Pīs̲h̲dādid dynasty [ q.v.] in legendary Iranian epic history, coming after the first world-king Kayūmart̲h̲ or Gayōmard and the founder of the Pīs̲h̲dādids, Hūs̲h̲ang [ q.v.]. Certain Islamic sources make him the first king of his line, and the length of the reign attributed to him—such figures as an entire millennium or 600 years are given—shows the importance attached to him. His name appears in the Avesta as Tak̲h̲mō urupa azinavε̇a , with the first element tak̲h̲ma , meaning “strong, courageous” (cf. the name Rustam/Rustahm) and urupi . azi…

Sarak̲h̲s

(916 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of northern K̲h̲urāsān, lying in the steppe land to the north of the eastern end of the Köpet Dag̲h̲ mountain chain. It was situated on the right or eastern bank of the Tad̲j̲ant (modern Ted̲j̲en) river, whose uncertain flow received the waters of the Harī Rūd before finally petering out in the Ḳara Ḳum desert [ q.v.]. According to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, the river bed only contained water at the time of floods, i.e. winter and early spring. Various channels were taken off the river for irrigation, but scantiness of water supply alwa…

Ḳūčān

(1,278 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, modern form of the mediaeval Islamic K̲h̲abūs̲h̲ān/K̲h̲ūd̲j̲ān, a town of northern K̲h̲urasān on the main highway connecting Tehran and Mas̲h̲had. It lies at an altitude of 4,060 feet in the fertile and populous Atrek River-Kas̲h̲af Rūd corridors, on the headwaters of the Atrek and between the parallel mountain ranges of the Kūh-i Hazār Masd̲j̲id on the north and the Kūh-i S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān and Kūh-i Bīnālūd on the south; the modern town ¶ lies several miles upstream, sc. to the east-south-east, of the mediaeval town. K̲h̲abūs̲h̲ān was apparently the earliest Islamic form of the…

Rifāʿiyya

(1,201 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of one of the most prominent Ṣūfī orders from the period of the institutionalisation of the ṭarīḳas [ q.v.], and one which came to be noted in pre-modern times for the extravagance of some of its practices. It is unclear whether the founder, Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī [ q.v.], was a mystic of the thaumaturgie, miracle-mongering type, but the order which he founded and which was developed by his kinsmen certainly acquired its extravagant reputation during the course of the 6th/12th century; it may not be without significance that the order grew…

Ḳāwurd

(1,120 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. čag̲h̲ri̊ beg dāwūd , called also Ḳara Arslan Beg on his coins and by authors like Mīrk̲h̲wand, the founder of a line of virtually independent Sald̲j̲ūḳ amīrs in Kirmān which endured for some 140 years until the irruption into the province of Og̲h̲uz from K̲h̲urāsān. The origins of Sald̲j̲ūḳ rule in Kirmān are obscure: there are discrepancies in the accounts of the sources, and the opening pages of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm’s local history of Kirmān are missing. Kirmān had been recovered by the Būyids after the G̲h̲aznavid occupation of 422-5/1031-4 (on which see E. Merçil, Gaznelilerʾin Kirm…

Özkend

(332 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, ūzkend , sometimes written in the sources Yūzkand or Ūzd̲j̲and, a town of mediaeval Islamic Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] in Central Asia, lying at the eastern end of the Farg̲h̲āna valley and regarded as being near the frontier with the pagan Turks. Already in the mid-3rd/9th century, Özkend had a local ruler called by the Turkish name K̲h̲ūrtigin (?Čūr-tigin) (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 30). The geographers of the next century (i.e. that of the Sāmānids) describe it as having the tripartite pattern typical of eastern Islamic towns, with a citadel in the madīna or inner cit…

Buzāk̲h̲a

(172 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a well in Nad̲j̲d in the territory of Asad or their neighbours Ṭayyiʾ (cf. Mufaḍḍalīyāt , 361, n. 3). The forces of the Banū Asad, who, led by the false prophet Ṭulayḥa, had relapsed from Islam on Muḥammad’s death, were defeated at Buzāk̲h̲a in 11/632 by Abū Bakr’s general Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd. Ḵh̲ālid’s army was reinforced for the battle by 1000 men of Ṭayyiʾ, detached from Ṭulayḥa’s side; Ṭulayḥa had the help of ʿUyayna b. Ḥiṣn and 700 men from Fazāra of G̲h̲aṭafān, old allies of Asad’s…

Sikandar b. Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Hindāl, called Buts̲h̲ikan

(220 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, sultan of Kas̲h̲mīr ( r. 791-813/1389-1410), who derived his name of “idol breaker” from his rigorist Muslim policies and draconian measures against the local Hindus. As a minor, he had his mother as regent until 795/1393 when, with the support of the Bayhaḳī Sayyids [ q.v. in Suppl.], refugees who had fled before Tīmūr [ q.v.], he threw off this tutelage and became the effective ruler, now having the k̲h̲uṭba read in his own name and minting coins. The campaigns of Tīmūr brought a considerable number of immigrants into India, and the most …

Māʾ

(1,772 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
10. Irrigation in Transoxania. The rivers of Inner Asia, extending from Ḵh̲wārazm in the west through Transoxania to eastern Turkistān (the later Sinkiang) and northwards to the Semirečye, have all been extensively used for irrigation purposes in the lands along those rivers and in oasis centres, providing a possibility for agriculture in favoured spots which were not too open to attack from the steppe nomads or more northerly forest peoples. Hence, as elsewhere in the Old World, the maintenance of irrigation works, surface canals and kārīz s or subterranean ¶ channels (these last t…

Faḳīr of Ipi

(238 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, the name given in popular parlance to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Mīrzā ʿAlī K̲h̲ān, Pathan mullah and agitator along the Northwestern Frontier of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent in both the later British Indian and the early Pakistani periods, d. 1960. A member of the Torī K̲h̲ēl group of the ʿUt̲h̲mānzay Wazīrs of North Wazīrīstān, probably one of the most unreconciled of the Pathan tribes of the Frontier in British times, he came to especial prominence in 1936-7, inflaming the Tōrī Ḵh̲ēls and the Mahsūds of the Tochi valley against the British…

Inʿām

(1,884 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), “favour, beneficence”, more specifically donatives, largesse, given to troops, etc. The problem of keeping armies in the field, once mustered and brought forward for action, was a perennial one for Islamic rulers and commanders. Unless inducements such as extra pay awards, ¶ promises of unusually attractive plunder, etc. could be dangled in front of the troops, there was danger that an army might disband itself and melt away once the immediate battle or object of a campaign had been achieved; not infrequently, it was difficult to …

Sebüktigin

(352 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(Tkish. sevük tégin “beloved prince”), Abū Manṣūr, Turkish slave commander of the Sāmānids [ q.v.] and founder of the G̲h̲aznawid dynasty [ q.v.] in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān. What little is known of his early life stems mainly from his alleged Pand-nāma or testament of advice to his successor (preserved in a later Persian historian; see s̲h̲abānkāraʾī ) and from D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ānī’s quotations from a lost part of the Mud̲j̲alladāt of Abu ’l-Faḍl Bayhaḳī [ q.v.] which dealt with Sebüktigin’s governorship. He came from the Barsk̲h̲ān district of the Semirečye [see yeti su …

Philby

(733 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Harry St. John Bridger (1885-1960), Arabian explorer and traveller, adviser to King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Suʿūd (Ibn Suʿūd) [see suʿūd , āl ] and British convert to Islam. Born of parents connected with planting and with ¶ official service in the Indian subcontinent, he had a conventional public school and Cambridge University education, and himself entered the Indian Civil Service in 1908. Already he showed a flare for learning Indian languages and for immersing himself in the cultures of India, until the First World War found him in…

Sulṭān al-Dawla

(197 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Bahāʾ al-Dawla Fīrūz, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ, Būyid ruler in Fars, and at first in ʿIrāḳ also, 403-15/1012-24, succeeding his father [see bahāʾ al-dawla, in Suppl.] at S̲h̲īrāz. Much of his reign was spent in conflict with his brothers, including Abu ’l-Fawāris Ḳawām al-Dawla, who eventually became ruler in Kirmān as Sultan al-Dawla’s subordinate, and Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan, with whom he disputed control of ʿIrāḳ. By 412/1021 the latter was able to secure recognition as ruler in ʿIrāḳ with the honorific of Mus̲h̲arrif al-Dawla (he had already declared himself S̲h̲āhāns̲h̲āh “king of kings”), a…

al-Samāwa

(408 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a., "the elevated land"). 1. Al-Samāwa was the name given, in the definition of al-Bakrī ( Muʿd̲j̲am mā staʿd̲j̲am , Cairo 1364-71/1945-51, iii, 754, copied by Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 245), during mediaeval Islamic times to the desert and steppeland lying between al-Kūfa and Syria. Earlier geographers were more specific. Thus Ibn Ḥawḳal (ed. Kramers, 22, 34-5, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 21, 34, see also his map of the Arabian peninsula) defines it as the plain stretching from Dūmat al-Ḏj̲andal [ q.v.] in northwestern Arabia to ʿAyn al-Tamr [ q.v.] in the desert on the fringes of th…

Ibn Dārust

(615 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Tād̲j̲ al-Mulk Abu ’l-G̲h̲anāʾim Marzubān b. Ḵh̲usraw-Fīrūz S̲h̲īrāzī (438-86/1046-93), high official in the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ administration under Sultan Malik S̲h̲āh [ q.v.], tand hat ruler’s last vizier. Born of a secretarial family in Fārs, he began his official career in the service of the slave commander Sāwtigin, who eventually recommended him to the sultan as a person of promise. Malik S̲h̲āh made him superintendent of the education and possessions of various of his sons, then overseer of the royal palace and its ancillaries, and finally head of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ chancery, the Dīwā…

Bānīd̲j̲ūrids

(699 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
or Abū Dāwūdids , a minor dynasty, probably of Iranian but conceivably of Turkish origin, which ruled in Ṭuk̲h̲āristān and Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān, sc. in what is now Afghan Turkestan, with a possible parallel branch in Ḵh̲uttal, sc. in what is now the Tadzhik SSR, during the later 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The genealogy and history of the Bānīd̲j̲ūrids are very imperfectly known, despite the attempts of J. Marquart, in his Ērānšahr , 300-2, and R. Vasmer, in his Beiträge zur muhammedanischen Münzkunde . I. Die Münzen der Abū Dāʾudiden , in Numismatische Zeitschr

Ḳungrāt

(520 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of first a Mongol and then a Türkmen tribe of Central Asia, and deriving its name from these last, a settlement on the lower Āmū Daryā or Oxus, modern Kungrad. The Mongol tribe of Ḳonḳi̊rat/Ḳonḳurat or Onggirat (spelt Ḳ.n.ḳūrāt in D̲j̲uwaynī, Ungrat in Marco Polo) seems to have lived in the extreme east of Mongolia, towards the Khinggan Mts. in a district called Ābd̲j̲iya-Küteger. The tribe gave its allegiance to Čingiz in his struggle against Ong K̲h̲ān [see čingiz k̲h̲ān ], and had the privilege of supplying the K̲h̲āns with wives; thus Čingiz’s wife Börte Fud̲j̲i…

Si̊g̲h̲nāḳ

(366 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Sug̲h̲nāḳ ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 119, Sūnāk̲h̲), a mediaeval Islamic town on the middle Si̊r Daryā, in the district known as Fārāb, between Isfīd̲j̲āb and D̲j̲and [ q.vv. in Suppl.]. It seems to have been, together with the “new settlement” Yengikent, Sawrān and others, one of the settlements there of the Turks, explicitly defined by Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī as “a town of the Og̲h̲uz” (Tkish. tr. Atalay, i, 471; Eng. tr. Dankoff and Kelly, i, 352). Al-Muḳaddasī, 323 n. k, links it with Utrār [ q.v.], 24 farsak̲h̲ s further up the Si̊r Daryā. In Turkish, si̊g̲h̲naḳ means …

Sarandīb

(540 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name given in mediaeval Islamic geographical and historical sources to the island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). The Arabic form renders well the Skr. Siṃhala “Ceylon” + dvīpa “island”; an intermediate form is found in al-Bīrūnī, India, tr. E. Sachau, London 1910, i, 233, as Sangaladīp . By the time of Yāḳūt (early 7th/13th century), the form Sīlān is found ( Buldān , ed. Beirut, i, 346, art. Baḥr al-Hind ). Most of the mediaeval Islamic geographers, from Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih onwards, give some account of Sarandīb, placing it in the Sea of Harkand (= the Bay of…

Umm al-Ḳurā

(316 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), lit. "the mother of settlements/ villages/towns", a Ḳurʾānic expression. It occurs as such in VI, 92 and XLII, 5/7, in which the Prophet Muḥammad is commanded to warn the people of the umm al-ḳurā [of God’s punishment for disobedience], whilst in XXVIII, 59, it is said that God did not destroy the ḳurā until He had sent to them a messenger ( rasūl ) reciting God’s miraculous signs. Although taken by the commentators to mean the town of Mecca, an interpretation followed in the art. Ḳarya (and used as such at the present day, Umm al-Ḳurā being the title of an offi…

Rād̲j̲ā Ganes̲h̲

(216 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(the latter part of the name being the Hindu name Gaṇésa, appearing in Arabic script as G.n.s or G.n.sī), a local Hindu landowner of northern Bengal, who successfully usurped authority in Bengal during the latter years of the first period of power of the Ilyās S̲h̲āhī line, probably in the first decade or so of the 9th/15th century. The sources are unclear, but it seems that Rād̲j̲ā Ganes̲h̲ wielded the real power in the state under the nominal rule of the Ilyāsids, and then in 817/1414 placed on the throne his young son D̲j̲adu, who became a Muslim an…

Naṣr b. S̲h̲abat̲h̲

(259 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
al-ʿUḳaylī , the leader of a rebellion of the North Arab or Ḳaysī tribesmen in al-D̲j̲azīra against the central authority of the ʿAbbāsids during the caliphates of al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn. We find him mentioned in 196/811-12 as the head of zawāḳīl , lawless bands of Arabs, mainly Ḳaysīs, who had taken advantage of the breakdown of rule during the civil war (see on the term zawāḳīl, D. Ayalon, The military reforms of caliph al-Muʿtaṣim , their background and consequences, unpubl. paper presented to the Internat. Congress of Orientalists, New Delhi 1964, xerox Jerusalem 1963,…

Ḳadamgāh

(386 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a. and p.), literally “place of the [imprint of the] foot”, a village in K̲h̲urāsān, on the highway to Mas̲h̲had and some 20 km/12 miles ¶ east of Nīs̲h̲āpūr at the southern edge of the Kūh-i Bīnālūd (lat. 36° 07′ N., long. 59° 00′ E.). It is locally famed as a ziyāratgāh or place of pilgrimage, since the Eighth Imām of the S̲h̲īʿa, ʿAlī al-Riḍā [ q.v.], is said to have halted there and left the imprint of his foot on a stone, henceforth to be regarded with reverence; see Bess A. Donaldson, The wild rue. A study of Muhammadan magic and folklore in Iran , London 1938, 59, 148-9). The concept of sacred i…

Mābeyn

(328 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(A. mā bayn “what is between”), in the organisation of the Ottoman palace, the intermediate appartments lying between the inner courts of the Sarāy and the Ḥarem, a place where only the sultan, the eunuchs and the womenfolk could penetrate and where the corps of select pages known as mābeynd̲j̲is , an elite group from amongst the forty k̲h̲āṣṣ odali̊s , waited on the monarch for such intimate services as dressing and shaving him [see k̲h̲āṣṣ oda ]. Till the end of the 11th/17th century, the Mābeynd̲j̲is were headed by the Silaḥdār Ag̲h̲a or Swordbearer, as chief p…

Taʿarrub

(159 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the verbal noun of a denominative verb formed from ʿArab , pl. Aʿrāb , in the sense of “nomads, Bedouins” (the Ḳurʾānic sense of this latter term, cf. e.g. IX, 98/97, XLIX, 14; taʿarrub itself does not occur in the Ḳurʾān). In earliest Islam, taʿarraba and its synonym tabaddā denote the return to the Arabian desert after hid̲j̲ra [ q.v.] to the garrison towns ( amṣār [see miṣr . B]) and participation in the warfare to expand the Arab empire and the Abode of Islam. Some of this movement back to the desert was doubtless legitimate, but on occasion it was deno…

Mānī

(304 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Fāttik or Fātik , the form found in mediaeval Islamic sources (e.g. al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , ii 164, 167-8, vii, 12-16, viii, 293, = §§ 589, 594, 2705-7, 3447) for the founder of the dualist religion of Manichaeism, Mani son of Pātik, born in southern Mesopotamia in 216 A.D. and martyred under the Sāsānid Bahrām I in 274, 276 or 277, and whose faith spread from the Persian empire in the 7th century as far as Central Asia, eastern Turkestan (where after 762 it was the chief religion of the ¶ Uyg̲h̲ur Turks [ q.v.]) and northern China. In Islamic sources, the adherents of Manichaeism appe…
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